All about events and happenings at the Big Gay Frat House in San Francisco's oh-so-gay Castro District, as well as our various adventures out and about in San Francisco.

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The images we use are all original and are not lifted from the Internet, except when provided by promoters about their events. Our photos are uploaded to Flickr and linked back to here. Many of these images are restricted on Flickr due to showing some nudity or other adult content. To see full-size thumbnails of any restricted images in slideshows, you must create an account on Flickr, log in, and turn off SafeSearch in your account settings. This allows Flickr to prevent minors and those not interested in the content from accidentally seeing it.

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Justin Morgan has been a longtime friend of the Big Gay Frat House. In fact, he was the very first go-go boy I ever hired. He was the regular go-go dancer at Faggot First Wednesdays, an event at 440 Castro, where I slipped my business card in his undies and told him I wanted to hire him for our Epiphany Party, the first event at the BGFH.

Every year, Justin participates in the AIDS LifeCycle Ride, an annual fundraiser for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. Riders solicit donations and then ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles over a seven day route. To support his fundraising efforts, he's throwing an event at the Powerhouse on Saturday, May 14th.

Hey, have you guys heard about the AIDSLifeCycle? It's this event that no one in San Francisco is doing. Join me as I try to squeeze a few dollars out of you for an amazing cause. Lap dances, champagne shots, and other classy activities await.

I plan to be there and I hope to see other friends of the Big Gay Frat House there as well. Justin's a great guy and it's for a great cause.

And just for fun, check out some of the photos I've taken of Justin over the last few years....

I just wanted to send a few quick updates about a few things to our members, from comic books to movies, margaritas, and more!

Junkyard Angels

Those of you who've come to events at the BGFH may remember my friend, Zach Enea. He made the yummy chicken enchilada dip for some of our Girl Drink Drunk fundraisers and once served as a back-up dancer for Ethel Merman. He's also an accomplished illustrator. Just ask BeBe Sweetbriar, who uses one of his illustrations of her to promote many of her events. Anyway, Zach is also the illustrator for a web comic called "Junkyard Angels," which is published on DoorQ. The first volume of "Junkyard Angels" is now being published in print for the very first time, and fans are encouraged to check it out and buy through IndyPlanet. You can also friend request their page on Facebook to be alerted of ways to buy discounted copies

Robots, zombies, and a broken heart. Everything a growing boy needs.

For more information about "Junkyard Angels" or to check out some of Zach's other work, you can visit these sites:

We're down to the home stretch for the 8th Cosmique Movie Awards, in which we celebrate the best (and worst) of movies from the previous year. The awards blend the gravitas of the Oscars with the irreverance of the MTV Movie Awards. The nominations are in, and BGFH members are invited to vote in the final round to determine the winners. If you skipped the nomination round because it seemed too intimidating, don't worry: you can still vote for the winners, and this time it's all multiple choice!

The deadline to vote is midnight PDT on Friday, May 6, 2011. You can cast your ballot online.

Cinco de Mayo

Lots of folks consider Cinco de Mayo, like St. Patrick's Day and New Year's Eve, to be "amateur's hour" when it comes to drinking. Like St. Patrick's Day, Columbus Day, and Gay Pride, the holiday began as a way for a disenfranchzed segment of Americans to assert their pride, solidarity, and political power -- but today is often more about celebrating and having fun. For more on that, check out my article on the BGFH blog called Why Pride?

This year, I will be celebrating Cinco de Mayo happy hour at The Cafe (2369 Market Street, SF) where my friend DJ Go will be spinning and Brandon will be pouring strong 2-for-1 drinks. In the spirit of BGFH events, on St. Patrick's Day we over-tipped Brandon enough to get him to work shirtless. (Hmmm. On Easter, several staff members worked wearing just bunny ears and underpants, but I can't promise we could tip Brandon enough to agree to shed his jeans.) So if you're looking for a place to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, check out The Cafe -- and if you're a real die-hard, stay for Pan Dulce, The Cafe's weekly Latin night.

AIDS LifeCycle

Back to fundraising! Just wanted to put out another plug for our friends doing the annual AIDS LifeCycle ride. If you're planning a fundraiser to help you raise your pledged amount for the ride (or if you know someone who is), especially something in the risque spirit of BGFH events, let me know and we may be able to help.

The Big Gay Frat House and the CCSF Green Corps presents Casino Night at The Cafe! a charity event benefitting CCSF's Green Corps, a student organization working for economic and environmental sustainability on campus and in our community.

The gambling at Casino Night is for fun and prizes, but money donated for chips goes directly to the charity and cannot be redeemed.

Emceed by Pollo Del Mar

DJ Sysko

Poker, blackjack, and roulette games with all proceeds going to the Green Corps

Drink specials benefitting the Green Corps

Jell-o shots

Your donation provides you with poker chips that can be used in exchange for Green Corps-provided mixed drinks from a special bar, jell-o shots, and playing games of poker, blackjack, and roulette. Winning games earns you tickets that can be redeemed for prizes donated by:

A.G. Ferrari Foods

The Cafe

Cove Cafe

check back for more as other prizes are confirmed

Awesome playing cards discounted by Under One Roof.

Please note that as this is a charity fundraiser. All donations for poker chips will go directly to Green Corps. Poker chips can earn you tickets that can be redeemed for prizes, jell-o shots, or drinks from the special Green Corps bar, but neither chips nor tickets can be redeemed for cash.

CCSF Green Corps is a local chapter of the California Student Sustainability Coalition, an organization working for economic and environmental sustainability throughout California as well as building youth with leadership skills in our communities. CCSF Green Corps' current projects include creating a student-run, local, organic farmers market at CCSF Ocean campus and a student-run organic/healthy food co-op also on Ocean. Proceeds from this fundraiser will help send 15 student leaders to Washington DC mid April for a convergence of over 10,000 young leaders from around the country called Power Shift 2011. Power Shift is a three day event to train young leaders how to properly organize and lobby congress on the federal as well as local levels, and to discuss and define the direction and policies of our country, followed by a lobbying day in the Capital. The last Power Shift in 2009 held the record for the largest single day of lobbying that year.

Check back regularly, see new prize sponsors and other details. As we are trying to organize quickly before Power Shift 2011, details are still being fleshed out and are subject to change.

You remember Sigma Epsilon Omega (SEO), the gay fraternity at U.C. Berkeley that worked with us on the Frat House for the Holidays fundraiser way back in November of 2007? They are about to celebrate their fourth anniversary with a fundraiser in Berkeley.

Sigma Epsilon Omega is the only gay fraternity in the Bay Area, founded in 2007. They concern themselves with fighting against homophobia in the Greek system, educating communities about LGBT issues, and working alongside nonprofits helping people with AIDS. In celebration of SEO's fourth anniversary, SEO invites you to support the endeavors of the fraternity, meet the brothers, and enjoy a night of fun in Berkeley.

$30 per guest in advance, $35 at the door.

RSVP or inquiries: nicholas@sigmaepsilonomega.com

Be sure to "like" the Big Gay Frat House on Facebook to keep up-to-date on this and other events.

[To celebrate achieving 50,000 photos on my Flickr stream since 2006, I'm posting my top 20 favorite photographic themes. Check out Top 20 Flickr Photo Themes and 50,000 Photos for more. To see the best restricted photos on Flickr, you will need to create an account and then turn off SafeSearch in your account settings.]

[Note: like much of my Flickr account, this post is not exactly safe for work.]

In some ways, the photos I've taken of charity fundraisers at the Big Gay Frat House are some of my absolute favorites. They may be only #9 on my list, but that's because other types of photos are so much more significant in my Flickr stream, especially in terms of fan favorites. The very first fundraiser was held on April 15, 2006, and the very last one held in the house was April 12, 2008. During those two years, we raised a net total of 30,000 for different LGBT charitable causes in our home.

Here are the different fundraisers that have given the Big Gay Frat House a name and quite a lot of traffic to my Flickr stream.

Balls Out Ball

Our very first fundraiser was the Balls Out Ball, a benefit for the SF Fog rugby team. The event came about because a friend of mine on the team took me out for drinks to get my ideas regarding how the team could raise their profile and improve their fundraising efforts. I warned them that a sports team could never compete against AIDS and social services as a cause. Instead, they needed to compete in the world of entertainment, creating an event that someone would want to go to instead of going out to the bars or the movies or the theater. One natural asset, I said, was that they were a team of athletes who already have a culture for getting naked at the drop of a hat. I suggested that they could compete against bars, who cannot show full nudity due to archaic Alcohol Beverage Control regulations, by doing a full monty strip show.

At the same time, Tim discovered that Varla Jean Merman's rates for charitable events were affordable, and he wanted a reason to have her perform in our own home.

One of the members of the Fog worked at a local Castro bar and wass able to arrange for alcohol sponsorship from their liquor distributor -- a sweet guy who ultimately sponsored alcohol for every fundraiser ever held at the BGFH. The VIP area included a top-shelf open bar and a Talisker whiskey tasting lounge. The main bar featured free well drinks. And the show, hosted by Empress Donna Sachet and Greg the Gay Sportscaster, included five bachelor date auctions, performances by Varla Jean Merman and Ethel Merman, and a choreographed full monty strip show from seven of the rugby boys who showed everything.

You can check out more photos on Flickr. Below there are slideshows of the party and the performances:

We negotiated a deal to bring up Chi Chi LaRue to be our celebrity emcee, but when she had a scheduling conflict, we then turned to Brent Corrigan. The event featured an open bar, a chocolate bar sponsored by the San Francisco Chocolate Factory, appetizers from Healthy Spirits, and chair massages provided by Joshua Alexander, CMT.

Brent Corrigan presided over a competition in which three candidates performed and sold raffle tickets in order to be crowned King or Queen of the Fairies. Connie Champagne and Ethel Merman also performed, accompanied by Trauma Flintstone on the keyboard. In the meantime, Julian Marshburn, Mr. SF Leather 2004, wandered through the party with a gang of fairies bribing guests to play pranks on his fairies.

In the end, Katya Smirnoff-Skyy was crowned Queen with runner-up Foxy Cotton as her King. The party was a tremendous success, raising thousands of dollars for CUAV at their typical end-of-summer budget crunch.

You can check out photos on Flickr from batch 1 or batch 2, or see highlights in the slideshows below.

Midsummer Night's Dream slideshow, part 1:

Midsummer Night's Dream slideshow, part 2:

Girl Drink Drunks

In 2007, we partnered with Trauma Flintstone to launch a series of turnkey charity fundraisers called Girl Drink Drunk, named after a Kids in the Hall skit. We provided the basic infrastructure: the space, the staging and decorations, and the sponsors (especially for alcohol). Trauma Flintstone arranged for the entertainment, which generally included a blend of drag lipsynchers, drag live singers, a faux queens -- and, later, male strippers. And the beneficiary provided the staffing for the front door, coat check, clean-up, and, optionally, bartending. (We provided a bartender who worked for tips when the beneficiary chose not to staff that role.)

The approach made it simple for a charity to have a quick-and-easy fundraiser where, aside from finding volunteers for the evening, they didn't need to do anything to plan for the event.

Neighbor complaints and other issues ultimately forced us to abandon Girl Drink Drunk, but not before we held seven fundraisers that benefitted the SF Fog, Project Open Hand, the AIDS Housing Alliance, the SF Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, the Stop AIDS Project, the GoalDiggers gay hockey team, and Community United Against Violence.

Kevin and Tim had gone to U.C. Berkeley, where Tim had been in a straight-but-supportive fraternity. Kevin never joined a frat; a gay fraternity was being formed as he was graduating, but it collapsed after less than a year. David had been kicked out of his straight fraternity in Ohio when he came out, and then later joined a different gay fraternity at San Francisco State. So we wanted to make sure that SEO had a fighting chance to survive.

The event featured an open bar, drinking games, a dance floor, go-go boys (one who went all the way, full frontal), and a VIP lounge with top-shelf liquor and gift bags. We never did figure out how to monetize the drinking games, but it was still a lot of fun. Five of the boys were auctioned off for charity bachelor dates, which proved to be an excellent fundraising addition.

Though most if not all of the SEO boys who participated at the fundraiser have now graduated, the fraternity continues to thrive at U.C. Berkeley in a rented house that they hope to be able to buy at some point. Maybe another fundraiser someday?

In June of 2008, we again partnered with Brent Corrigan to throw Another Gay Fundraiser, a play on the name of Another Gay Movie featuring Brent that was being released the same weekend. This was our first big event outside of the house.

Once again, Community United Against Violence was the beneficiary, just as they had been for the Midsummer Night's Dream fundraiser that Brent emceed at the BGFH. And Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, who was proclaimed Queen of the Fairies at the Midsummer fundraiser, came back to perform.

The LookOut, which had recently replaced the Metro City Bar, played house and provided us with Jell-O shots that Brent's boys sold. Brent also auctioned off the first of a limited edition set of prints of an illustration of him as Stan the Merman from Another Gay Movie illustrated by Ismael Alvarez. Brent designed the publicity posters himself. DJ Pornstar provided the music.

[To celebrate achieving 50,000 photos on my Flickr stream since 2006, I'm posting my top 20 favorite photographic themes. Check out Top 20 Flickr Photo Themes and 50,000 Photos for more. To see the best restricted photos on Flickr, you will need to create an account and then turn off SafeSearch in your account settings.]

[Note: like much of my Flickr account, this post is not exactly safe for work.]

On January 5, 2006, we threw our first major party at the Big Gay Frat House -- the Epiphany Party. It was the largest non-fundraiser we've ever held there and helped set the tone for our future events.

I had been in a private local Mardi Gras krewe for many years, almost two decades. Our krewe selected a monarch at Mardi Gras who would reign through the party and then throughout the next year. In most years, the monarch was chosen by lottery; candidates would select a piece of king cake. A small plastic baby was baked in the cake; whichever candidate selected the piece with the baby would be chosen monarch for the following year. For a five year stretch, monarchs were elected by the True Krewe, a group of members who helped throw the annual parties. We returned to letting the baby select the monarch, but only True Krewe members were eligible to be candidates.

I had vied to become monarch every year since joinging the krewe in its fourth year, and I was always the bridesmaid, never the bride. I was dubbed the Susan Lucci of our krewe. Finally in 2005, in the krewe's 17th year and my 14th as a member, we held our celebration in Palm Springs and, on my birthday, I was became monarch by acclamation when all of the other potential candidates stepped down to guarantee me the win.

One of the founders of the krewe always believed that finding the baby always "speeded things up" for the monarch, karmicly speaking, for good or bad. That was certainly the case for me. A month after becoming king, I was hired by Gay.com after more than a year of unemployment (granted, I wasn't looking for much of that time). Six months later, we bought the Big Gay Frat House.

(Note: some of the other photos in this post may not be entirely safe for work. More after the jump.)

San Francisco legend Cassandra Cass co-stars in a new 8-episode series on Showtime starting tonight called Wild Things. The show follows the adventures of three transgender women who visit small towns across America to take traditionally macho jobs in order to raise money for a sick family member.

But I first met her in person at the Big Gay Frat House when she came over to film a few promotional videos for Wet and Wild, the monthly party held on the third Saturday of every month at Club Eight. The first video featured Cassandra announcing a wet underwear contest and then brawling with our friend Lady TaTas:

The second was an incredibly artistic shower scene filmed in our garage, believe it or not:

Wild Things premieres on Thursday, September 9, 2010 only on Showtime. And Cassandra Cass herself will be watching from the Midnight Sun.

[To celebrate achieving 50,000 photos on my Flickr stream since 2006, I'm posting my top 20 favorite photographic themes. Check out Top 20 Flickr Photo Themes and 50,000 Photos for more. To see the best restricted photos on Flickr, you will need to create an account and then turn off SafeSearch in your account settings.]

Number 11 on my list of my favorite sorts of Flickr photos are those where people strip down for a good cause. Hell, the Big Gay Frat House practically built our reputation on getting boys to strip down -- and our open bar and lack of restrictions on full frontal nudity helped our events compete in the realm of nightlife entertainment.

We won't cover our own events just yet -- that's higher in this countdown, natch. But we are proud of how we helped contribute to the "risque for a cause" culture, starting with our very first fundraiser where we convinced the SF Fog rugby team to strip down completely naked in a choreographed Full Monty routine back at our very first fundraiser, the Balls Out Ball (pictured above).

When folks strip down to their skivvies or completely naked, either to raise money for a cause or just to raise awareness, that's something we have to support and encourage. This particular entry is about my favorites done by other people, starting with my absolute favorite...

BikeR Fundraiser at the Powerhouse

In May of 2007, my friend Jon and his friend Jon (confusing?) held a fundraiser at the Powerhouse called BikeR to help raise funds to participate in the AIDS Lifecycle Ride, an annual bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise funds for AIDS support. Each rider pledges to raise thousands of dollars in addition to then riding 500 miles by bike. Many get friends to pledge small amounts, but often riders also throw their own mini-fundraisers to make up the difference.

As is typical at these sorts of events, the boys got merchandise donated (mostly porn) which were then raffled off to guests who could buy a ticket for $1, six for $5, or the whole length of their inseam for $10. The event was emceed by one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Sister Gladys Pantzeroff.

But there was something else special coming up, an idea that I had hoped to use at one of our events and was delighted someone else decided to do. Sister Gladys got the boys to get up on stage and announced that they had each pledged to remove an article of clothing for every $20 that the crowd collectively donated. You could throw in anything -- $1, $10, $20, or more. (I think I ended up spending $40 but some of that may have also gone to raffle tickets.) First their shirts came off. Then their shoes and socks. Shirtless and barefoot in a bar. Then their pants came off. My friend Jon was down to cute orange briefs, while his friend Jon was down to tight, tight leather shorts. My friend stopped at this point, but his friend continued and actually auctioned off his leather shorts. Now he was stripped completely naked in the bar as Sister Gladys gallantly used her own hand to cover his modesty. (Stupid ABC regulations.) He stood that way a bit before donning a jockstrap to then complete drawing winning raffle tickets.

I had hoped they'd stay undressed for the rest of the night, but they put their clothes back on once the raffle was completed.

When AIDS first struck in the early 80s, our lesbian sisters stepped in to help provide care and fundraising support even though lesbians are probably the least likely group at risk of HIV infection. Now a lot of LGBT fundraisers also include causes that are specific to women -- like breast cancer.

One such event, at one time held annually by Sister Roma (There's No Place Like Rome) of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, perhaps the most photographed nun on the planet, was Looking Good, Feeling Fab. The event was a marathon of feathers, glitter, and flesh, often taking 10 hours to hold the entire event.

In between performances by drag queens, Sister Roma would also get cute boys (often porn stars) to get up on stage and quite literally auction off all of their clothes. I attended the third one at The Edge and the fourth one at Harvey's. And I came away with my share of loot -- a button down shirt from one porn star, a t-shirt from another, Derrek Hanson's swimsuit (which I took off of his body while the rest of the audience just saw the concealing towel), and even one boy's cockrings (which I also was obliged to remove). Anything for the cause, right?

Here's a slideshow of some of my favorite images. You can find more on Flickr.

Manwash at the Powerhouse

Speaking of Pete Ross (pictured above)...

Several years ago, the Powerhouse hosted a short-lived series of fundraisers for the Stop AIDS Project called Manwash. It was a brilliant idea, in my opinion, because it was a raffle that depending not on getting items donated but rather in getting cute guys to donate their bodies.

At the first one, held in June of 2006, porn star Pete Ross and a few staffers at the Stop AIDS Project sold raffle tickets to members of the audience. A few items were raffled off (probably porn, if I recall). But then one lucky winner got to go onstage with Pete and "dirty" him up with washable body paint. And then the grand prize winner got to take him to a bathtub with a shower to "clean him up."

I was the grand prize winner -- using money that my cab driver had given me to use in the raffle! The cabbie was a gay old-timer nostalgic for the old Miracle Mile days of Folsom Street's heyday.

The next month I went again. And I once again won the grand prize. You can check out the photos on Flickr or enjoy the slideshows below.

World Naked Bike Ride

Sometimes when people strip down for a good cause, it's to raise awareness rather than money.

Such is the case with the World Naked Bike Ride, an annual global event in which participants strip as bare as they dare (including completely naked in many cities like San Francisco) and ride their bicycles through the city to help raise awareness of global dependence on oil and petroleum products.

The WNBR gets a nice range of participants. Male and female (mostly male). Gay and straight. Young and old. Cute and not-my-type. But whatever, they've got guts. They're willing to go outdoors in broad daylight, strip completely naked, and spend hours riding their bikes with their all-togethers flapping in the breeze, all to raise awareness of a global crisis.

Though I had heard of the event before, this year was the first time I heard about San Francisco's participation in time to be able to go down and report on it. I blogged about it at the time, of course, but you can check out even more photos on Flickr.

You can also check out the global and San Francisco websites to learn more about the cause, and find out how to participate in the next one.

Remember the fundraisers as a kid, where you raised money for the band or your athletic team by selling candy bars, or doing a bake sale, or holding a car wash?

In the Castro, car washes are now all grown up and are certainly not just for kids anymore.

I'm talking about the Tighty Whitey Car Wash, an annual fundraiser held by the men of the Bare Chest Calendar as a fundraiser for the AIDS Emergency Fund. Cute guys strip down to their white cotton briefs and hold a car wash in the parking lot behind Walgreens in the Castro. Oh, and you know what happens to white briefs when they get wet, don't you?

Porn star Will Clark has held a series of "Bad Boy" fundraisers across the country -- Bad Boys on the Hudson in New York, the Bad Boys Pool Party in Palm Springs, and twice held Bad Boys by the Bay in San Francisco, which was a benefit for Magnet. Magnet is a men's clinic in the Castro that provides STD testing and counseling.

I went to both San Francisco events in 2004 and 2005, but was too far from the stage at the first to take photos. Thus I have no proof that Michael Brandon ejaculated on stage. (Actually, I think he hit the porn star who dove beneath him rather than the actual stage.) Yup. Even the BGFH has never done an event quite like that.

The events included drag performances, some with scantily-clad backup dancers, as well as porn stars doing all sorts of nudey activities. And yup, I was able to take photos at this one.

Sadly, Will needed a bit of a break and reigned in some of his activities. Although he continues to do events in New York City, I'm not aware of him doing anything recent in San Francisco. But in the meantime, there are photos from this second event on Flickr and a slideshow of a few of the best photos below:

What's next?

Of course, there are so many more examples, including risque fashion shows that I've already written about and the BGFH events coming up soon.

Sadly, most of these events are no more. BikeR was just a one-time only event. Manwash only lasted a few months. Sister Roma did at least four Looking Good, Feeling Fab events, but I'm not aware of any others in recent years. Bad Boys by the Bay only occurred twice. The Tighty Whitey Car Wash might be coming up again in a few weeks, but I haven't heard for sure. The World Naked Bike Ride is the only one I'm absolutely confident will continue.

So what's next? The BGFH has done a lot of fundraisers where boys got near-naked (and completely nude) for charity, but we can't host in our house anymore.

So ... who's taking up the mantle? Who's trying to get cute boys naked for a good cause? Be sure to let us know and we'll promote the hell out of it!

The whole process was a whirlwind. We looked at the place in July of 2005, when I wasn't even really looking to move, and within days we were in escrow.

Escrow closed in August of 2005, but it was a crazy, busy process with a lot of contingencies that could easily have made the entire deal collapse. Tim and David each owned adjoining condos that had to be sold, and I had a tiny cottage in the Western Addition that needed a lot of work before it could be put on the market.

I spent August of 2005 packing, and then when escrow closed I began to move stuff into the basement office storage space. I was completely out of my place by September 1 so that we could renovate my old place to put it on the market. You can see some of the "before" photos on Flickr.

But even though escrow had closed, that didn't mean we could move right in. There were tenants. We did a lot of negotiating and paid them a lot of money to agree to move. The first two were out by October 1; the other two were out a few weeks later.

In the meantime, I slept for a month on a couch at Tim's apartment. My cottage went up for sale. It was an interesting time for real estate, the first wobbles in the market that would be a harbinger for the national collapse that would come in 2008. The seller of the BGFH dropped the price by a hundred grand just as we were writing our offer. Somehow, we managed to sell our old places high but buy the BGFH on sale, as more complicated properties started to feel the pinch sooner. My cottage went for four times what I paid for it; it has subsequently gone back on the market for $100,000 less than what they paid for it. David's condo was the last one bedroom to sell in that building for a year, and remains that highest priced one bedroom sale in that building.

David and I moved in on October 1, 2005. I had barely any furniture; I got rid of quite a lot with the intention of buying new stuff with some of the proceeds from the sale of my house. Much of David's were still in storage; he was waiting for the tenants to move out of the main unit before he moved downstairs.

On October 21st, we had our first public viewing, a small cocktail party that served as our housewarming. The tenants had moved out and we could occupy the main floor for the party. We had virtually no furniture (we didn't get living room furniture until April of 2007, a year and a half after we bought the place, but that made our first fundraisers a lot easier). The back deck for smoking was very cramped before we built a new onethat could fitmany more people. The front of the house still had a small balcony that you could climb out onto through the front windows. Our windows still had old aluminum framing that let every degree of warm air escape. It was a boxy, 1950s-style apartment building, an eyesore, but it had a lot of potential.

We celebrated Halloween there a week later, on the "gay Halloween" held on the Saturday before. We got a bunch of friends together to go as rainbow geishas, each of us dressed up as a different color in the original 8-striped gay flag. Neighbors across the street who later became friends commented that they watched us getting ready to go out onto the streets (perhaps the last year where even the "gay Halloween" felt safe enough to go out).

The next day, we ripped down the balcony in front of the house. Scaffolding went up. The facade of the house was ripped off so that we could remake the BGFH into a craftsman-style home. The aluminum-framed windows were replaced with gorgeous double-paned wooden-framed ones. Insulation was blown into our walls while I was conveniently in Argentina for a business trip.

The facade work was supposed to be done by Christmas. Of course it wasn't. Our first major party, the Epiphany Party, was held on January 5, 2006 while the front of the house was still covered with a blue tarp. The scaffolding didn't come down until April 13, 2006 -- just two days before our first major fundraiser, the Balls Out Ball for the SF Fog rugby team.

And here we are, five years later. It took years, but eventually we re-did the garden. We have furniture -- and fewer parties. We've made the Big Gay Frat House into a home.

Do you miss the Big Gay Frat House parties? Are you longing for the charity fundraisers we used to be able to host in our home? The open bars? The drag performances? The go-go boys, strippers, and full monty strip shows? Bachelor date auctions and raffles? The fun and mayhem?

How would you feel about the occasional BGFH party in a fabulous San Francisco loft?

There's a chance, a slim chance, that we may be able hold the occasional Big Gay Frat House fundraiser in a fabulous loft in San Francisco furnished and sponsored by Logitech Review. Here's the scoop:

Logitech is seeking to find a "Host with the Most" for San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. The hosts would hold parties in a fabulous loft space in order to introduce friends and followers to Logitech Review with Google TV. Our friend Phillip is vying to be Logitech's San Francisco host.

You may remember Phillip from our Frat House for the Holidays fundraiser, the fundraiser for the gay fraternity at UC Berkeley that we held in November of 2007. Phillip was the fundraising chair for the fraternity and our liaison. More recently, he's thrown fabulous events at different bars in San Francisco, including Wet and Wild on the third Saturday of every month at Club 8.

Phillip has said that if he wins, he'll do what he can to allow us to have the occasional BGFH fundraiser at the loft. And what a loft it is! Check out the photos of the San Francisco Logitech loft space on Flickr.

So if you miss our parties and want us to have a chance to do more, log into Facebook and vote for Phillip Alvarado. You can cast another vote every 24 hours up until the deadline of August 23.